Design sings in SkySong shade sails

Specialty Fabrics Review | April 2009

Arizona State University’s Scottsdale Innovation Center invites business and research enterprises to co-locate with ASU’s technology units in a creative incubator. SkySong, a 125-foot swooping shade structure that anchors the central plaza, has become the signature of the Center’s entrepreneurial endeavors.

Architect and engineer Nicholas Goldsmith, FTL Design Engineering Studio, New York, N.Y., worked on the iconic shade structure, which has what he terms a rotational quality. “As you walk into it, it’s kind of a repetitive symmetry, and the space is always moving around you,” says Goldsmith. The manufacturer, FabriTec Structures of Costa Mesa, Calif., used Teflon®-coated fiberglass over four sets of steel frames. The sails must withstand 650 pounds of force per square inch to handle wind and rain. Lights will make the fabric glow at night and dominate the landscape. “There’s a sense of arrival, entry, opening and welcoming,” says Goldsmith. “It’s something unique and special and really Scottsdale.” This article includes information from the Arizona Republic and AzCentral.com. Find out more at www.skysongcenter.com.

Comments

Comments are the opinion of individual posters and do not reflect the views of Specialty Fabrics Review or Industrial Fabrics Association International.

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  Kent Paul Dolan

  Jun 14, 2010
  4:30 pm CDT

  How much stress can the SkySong canopy as a whole withstand.

  SkySong seems to exist mostly as a structure in tension, so it can probably shrug off unnoticed an earthquake of the force typical to Arizona.

  How does the structure as a whole rate at standing up to the two possible sources here of wind violence, monsoon downburster leading edges, and tornadoes?

  xanthian.